New-look Big 12 ready to embark on a season of big expectations, enormous pressure to win

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — All the talk is over in the Big 12. The preseason hype has hit and settled.

Now it's time for the new-look conference, where longtime members Oklahoma and Texas have been replaced by Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado in the latest round of college football musical chairs, to prove its worth on the field.

The newcomers don't exactly have it easy out of the gate.

Start with the Sun Devils, who open Saturday with perennially bowl-bound Wyoming, which won nine games a year ago. The Cowboys' season ended with a win over Toledo in the Arizona Bowl, which the No. 21 Wildcats call home.

Arizona, meanwhile, gets a softer opening against New Mexico, then plays Northern Arizona the following week. But things get rough in a hurry with a trip to No. 18 Kansas State for a nonconference matchup against a new conference rival.

No. 12 Utah opens against Southern Utah before it, like Arizona, gets a nonconference game against a Big 12 foe. In the Utes' case, it's Baylor, which is trying to bounce back from a three-win season but won 12 games just a few years ago.

Then there is Colorado, which might attract the most attention of any newcomer not just because of their play — the Buffaloes won four games in their last season in the Pac-12 — but because of their high-profile coach. Deion Sanders is confident that they will be vastly improved this season, and they have a chance to prove it right away against North Dakota State.

The Bison may play at the Football Championship Subdivision level, but they've won fewer than 11 games only once in the past 12 years. During that stretch, they've beaten Big 12 schools Kansas State and Iowa State along with No. 13 Iowa of the Big Ten.

“They're good. They're really darned good,” Sanders said recently, “and I'm mad at (athletic director) Rick (George) right now for putting them on the schedule, to open up with them. Like, can you give me a layup or something? Those guys are wonderful."

The Bison played in five of the previous six FCS title games before losing in the semifinals last season.

“Their staff has always been amongst the best. Many people have matriculated from that staff to go to higher levels. Those kids play their butts off. They play tough. They don’t make many mistakes. They’re accustomed to winning,” Sanders said. “They don’t give a darned about being at home or on the road. That doesn’t faze them whatsoever.”

The quartet of newcomers — though Colorado is in fact returning the league after 13 years in the Pac 12 — aren't the only ones who face a challenge right away. TCU hits the road to face Stanford, which is now a member of the ACC, while West Virginia has perhaps the toughest task when it welcomes No. 8 Penn State to town Saturday night.

“I think the Penn State game is huge for us,” said Mountaineers coach Neal Brown, whose job was starting to come into question before they won nine games last season. “That's a regional rivalry, which I know that you're very entrenched in traditions. It's not a rivalry that's gone West Virginia's way very often. So that's a great opportunity for us.”

It's also a great opportunity for the Big 12 to beat one of the best programs in the expanded Big Ten.

“You're correct,” Brown said, “it's a big game for our league, and this new Big 12, without a couple schools that have been part of the Big 12 for a long time in that first weekend on a marquee stage, to show what kind of football we play in this league.”

There will be other chances for marquee nonconference wins, of course. Take next week: Iowa State plays No. 25 Iowa, No. 22 Kansas heads to Illinois and Colorado visits Nebraska in games against Big Ten foes; Arkansas visits No. 17 Oklahoma State and Mississippi State visits Arizona State in Big 12-SEC showdowns; and Cincinnati plays ACC rival Pittsburgh.

Yet there is something meaningful about winning in Week 1, both for West Virginia and the Big 12 as a conference.

“Whether it’s West Virginia or any other program in the Big 12 gets those kind of marquee wins, our brand will continue to grow,” Brown said, “and we’ve got to make some noise in the playoff. I think Commissioner (Brett) Yormark spoke about this: We’re the most competitive league. I would say we’re the deepest football league in the entire country. But we’ve got to go. TCU had a nice run (in 2022), but we’ve got to have more wins in the playoff once we get in.”

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Dave Skretta, The Associated Press